The Runaways
by Smiley612
Summary: AU. Eddie is a fugitive. Patty was never the good twin. KT's family mysteriously vanished. Mara wrote a horrid article. Jerome's family abandoned him. Alfie's magic trick failed. Joy's friends turned on her. Fabian's not innocent, and Amber sleepwalked into trouble with the law. 12 teens meet on the run, and they learn they have to stick together…through everything (or else).
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: (FFN IS BEING A BUTT AND I'M NOT SURE WHY.) I'm not really sure myself what this is. The idea came to me so suddenly in December, and I had to write it down before I lost the new plot bunny; and, just as expected, I did. It wasn't until I glanced through one of my million notebooks that I remembered it, and only until I spent the entire school day developing the idea that I finally wrote it down and realized how much I liked the idea.**

**I don't know how many chapters it will have yet, but it's kind of just an ensemble fic. (Yes, all twelve characters from all three seasons will be featured.) All I want in the world is for all twelve of the main cast members to unite just once, just once in my life, /please/. The main couple will be Peddie, but we'll need to develop them with the plot line, of course, and I'm not positive of the other ships quite yet. I do hope you enjoy this and please ignore the horrible title that will be edited as soon as I think of a better one.**

* * *

**E**ddie is a fugitive.  
**P**atricia was never the good twin.  
**K**ara might have something to do with her family's disappearance.  
**M**ara wrote a horrid article.  
**J**erome's family couldn't care less about him.  
**W**illow decided to become a thief.  
**A**lfie's magic trick was a failure.  
**N**ina's family was brutally murdered.  
**J**oy's friends turned on her.  
**F**abian did something completely out of character.  
**M**ick is caught up in a scandal.  
**A**mber sleepwalked into trouble with the law...again.

* * *

**_chapter one_**  
A Tin Can Under a Tank

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

**L**iverpool was known for bad weather, so Edison Miller's black hiking boots he got for Christmas when he was 13, however small they might have been on him now, were worn out almost beyond use. But they were the only protection he had from the puddles on the ground, the only blockade from dirt and grime.

He sloshed through the puddles on the ground as rain fell from the sky; Eddie tried to ignore the feeling as they pelted into his hair, flattening his spike onto his forehead. The rain wasn't the heaviest it had been since he first ran away, but Eddie only had one windbreaker, and he'd rather be warm in the cold January air than have a makeshift umbrella.

"Jeez!" He exclaimed, stopping abruptly before he could smash into the brick wall that was ahead of him in the alley. Eddie breathed in heavily, seeing his breath in the air when he exhaled. He wiped his hands on his jeans, cleansing them of oil or dirt, before turning around and walking ahead, his head down to the ground, able to step over the puddles but unable to see where he was going.

Eddie had been on the run for eighteen days. (Well, if you call it _on the run_ when all he had been doing was walking straight and sleeping in allies night by night.) He didn't want to admit what he did; if he confessed, either to himself or someone else, they could call the authorities and report him, throwing him in the big house, and that was one place he didn't want to be at seventeen years old. He'd learned not to trust people after all that he did; Eddie didn't trust little kids, teenagers, or even adults — _especially_ adults — all he had was himself.

That was fine with him. He had air in his lungs, a few blank sheets of paper and a pen in his pocket in case he needed to write something down, and his secret stash of money in his other pocket. He used it in case he needed food, but he didn't go into any markets to buy a cheeseburger, however much he was craving one.

All in all, he liked being on the run. Eddie loved waking up in the morning not knowing what was going to happen, who he was going to meet, where he was going to wind up. Just the other night, he was sleeping under a bridge, and now he was back in the suburbs of Liverpool, where he originally left town.

It wasn't like any cops were patrolling the streets looking for him specifically, but he stayed out of sight whenever he could. Eddie didn't want to risk his freedom (Could you call it freedom when he had nowhere to go?) in case someone recognized his face and turned him in the for the cash reward that was most certainly behind held against him. After all, he _did_ rob a house, and he _did_ run away from the police when he was caught spray painting a building, and he _did_ hijack his neighbor's car and rode it out of town until it ran out of gas and was too lazy to look for a gas station.

He was a fugitive. There was a day when he walked into a local pub and saw his face plastered on the "Wanted" list in the small world of Liverpool.

He wasn't originally from Liverpool; he lived with his mom until she died in a car accident. Because he had no other relatives in America and refused to live with his stepfather's brothers and sisters — his stepfather died when Eddie was eleven, leaving Jake, Bianca, and Kate, Eddie's step-siblings, alone with him and his mother — some people in suits told him his father was willing to try to live with him in England, where he lived as a teacher because he left Eddie and his mother at such a young age.

He lived with Eric for two years before Eddie started to "consort with the wrong people". His friends didn't influence him that much; if he was being honest, it was mostly his dad's strict attitude and his goal for perfection that angered Eddie so much he wanted to go out and do the "wrong thing". He bought cigarettes — he still had some in his back pocket — and he bought spray paint to graffiti art on the side of the buildings. He ended up in jail once, until Eric came and bailed him out.

Eddie still remembered the ride home after Eric bailed him out; he was grounded for a month. No television. No leaving the house unless it was for school. No sports, no friends over, and _certainly_ not any crime. And Eddie followed his dad's rules until he was officially un-grounded, and for a whole four months, he was crime-free. He still consorted with the "wrong people", as his dad called it, but he never committed anything that was against the law.

It wasn't until Christmas Eve that he realized he was so busy smoking and laughing with his friends in the tennis courts at school that he never got anything for his dad for Christmas. However much of a "bad boy" Eddie was (or how much he _thought_ he was), he still cared about his father, especially since he got him that expensive laptop that he'd been wanting forever.

So he picked the nearest house he could find, threw a rock at the window, and climbed inside, only to grab the nice teapot, all six cups with designs of the periodic table on them (Eddie figured he'd picked the right house, considering his dad was a science teacher), and the DVD player since theirs broke because Eddie played and replayed _Fight Club_ one too many times.

He didn't take too many things, but it was a robbery all the same.

On Christmas day, the truth caught up to him. He didn't ask how they figured out he was the person that robbed the house, but he knew the police had ways. (Fingerprints were probably the key factor, he reflected later when he was on the run.) His dad tried to reprimand him, but Eddie ducked out of his way, ran out into the backyard, hopped the fence, hot-wired his neighbor's car, and drove away into the Impala ran out of gas.

It was January 12th, and luckily, no one caught him yet. Eddie was having a grand old time on his own, just him and his thoughts, no one else but him and no one to tell him what to do and where to be and what to act like and what was wrong and what was right—

"Oomph!"

He was knocked to the floor by a different force; a force almost, if not stronger, than him. The wind was knocked out of him and when he hit the concrete, he saw stars until he forced his eyes open, rubbed his temples until his headache disappeared, only to see a small human being standing in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the girl in front of him, a redhead who's eye color he couldn't see in the cloudy evening. "Do you know who I am?"

"Why I would know you are?" The redhead's British accent dripped through her voice as she spoke, her hands on her hips, fixing him with a glare. Everything would be so much simpler if she would have just apologized and walked away like a normal human being, but Eddie supposed that any other person taking the back routes, filled with dumpsters and garbage cans behind the town instead of the main roads must have been suspicious to her. She repeated his question back to him: "What are you doing here?"

"Why should I tell you?" Eddie asked her, pushing himself off the blacktop, brushing the soot and dirt off of his jeans again. At a quick glance, he saw that the girl had red hair down to her shoulders and clipped behind her ear, eyes that looked either blue or green, and pink lips that were so chapped they looked like she had run them over with a truck.

The girl scoffed, rolling her eyes as she laughed to herself. "You're an American?"

"Yeah?" Eddie tested, arching an eyebrow. "What's so bad about that, Hermione?"

Eddie knew he was testing his limits, but at the moment, he didn't really care. This girl didn't seem to recognize his face, so hopefully she wouldn't call him out on being a wanted fugitive. However, with Eddie smirking at her, the girl rolled her eyes once more and turned on her heel, walking away.

He was about to continue walking, to find a different alley to sleep in for the night, since he couldn't go home and he couldn't necessarily rent a hotel room for the night, considering how low he was on money. He rolled his eyes at how ridiculous that girl was being, especially to a stranger she knew nothing about, when he noticed the large wallet in her back pocket with quite a few 100 pound bills sticking out of it.

He wondered why she would be walking around with so much money in her pocket if she lived around here; especially with the possibility of creepers crawling around the neighborhood at night (Creepers like Eddie).

Eddie had been stealing practically his entire life. He needed money desperately, seeming as he only had, like, fifteen pounds left. Could he just...steal it? He was the fastest in his class back when he was still in school, and he didn't think this chick was all that fast. He could sneak up behind her, snatch her wallet, and run away with it. He was already going to Hell, so why not?

He held his breath as he slowly sauntered up to the girl who was walking away from him, holding out his hand to grab the wallet, prepared to bolt away as soon as he grabbed it. His hand was slowly getting closer and closer to her back pocket; it was inches away until the same girl turned on her heel and slapped Eddie's hand away so hard he'd feel it throbbing in his nightmares.

"What do you think you're doing?!" She boomed, standing on her heels, her hands on her hips once again. Eddie was doubled over, holding his hand to his chest and trying not to scream out in pain to attract attention, and attention was the last thing he needed. She might not have looked like she was that strong physically-wise, but that girl certainly had an arm.

"Nothing!" Eddie defended himself, balling his hand into a fist to soothe the throbbing.

"Were you trying to _steal_ from me?! You nasty little stealing Weasel—" The girls voice rose louder in volume with each word, and Eddie moved from his crouched position, grabbed the girl's wrist, and dragged her down into his level and put a finger to his lips to silence her.

"Look, woman," he addressed her, since he still didn't know her name, "I have about fifteen pounds to my name, and I've been on the run for almost three weeks. I'm sorry for trying to steal from you, but I need some cash _desperately_."

He was expecting her to scoff at him again and walk away, and Eddie wouldn't even try to collect her wallet again. He'd let her walk away, and he'd have to find another way to get some money without a job and without stealing, since he couldn't get his face on any more "Wanted" posters than he already was. However, instead of walking away, a confused look crossed the girl's face and she whispered, "You're on the run too?"

"Yeah," Eddie answered immediately, surprised that she was asking him this. "_You're_ on the run?"

"Yeah!" the girl nodded, confusing Eddie just a little bit more. She didn't _look_ like she was on the run (But then again, why would a teenage girl like her be walking around the neighborhood at 3 in the morning with nine hundred pounds in her pocket?), but Eddie knew better than to judge a book by its cover. She paused for a moment, scratching the back of her head, before sucking in a deep breath and saying, "I've only been on the run for two days."

"Well, you're an amateur, then," he joked, but pulled the girl down when she rolled her eyes and started to push herself off the ground again. "Okay, redhead. I'm sorry for asking this of you, but I'm starving. I haven't eaten in three days. I only have two more water bottles in my backpack. I'll pay you back somehow, I don't when when and I don't know how, but I can't go into the supermarket and buy myself any food. Would you please, _please_ do it for me? _Please_?"

"What's in it for me?!" The girl seemed to have gotten the hint to keep quiet, as her voice was no louder than a whisper now. "I saved up this money _myself_. I intend to use it for _me_, Weasel."

Eddie exhaled loudly, looking away, refusing to let go of the girl's wrist, in case she tried to run away. He tried to think of an explanation, anything but that he was a fugitive and couldn't walk in the store in fear he'd be recognized. He wasn't taking any chances. He decided he was going to try to ramble, to distract her, maybe slip a hundred pound bill into his pocket while she wasn't looking and convince someone else to get some food for him, but then the girl asked him the question of: "What's your name, anyway?"

"What?" He asked her incredulously, staring at her with confusion. Soon after, though, the confused look vanished, shaking it off his face. Eddie quickly regained himself by asking her, "Tell me _your_ name first."

She took in a deep breath before telling him, "Patricia. Now tell me yours, or I go to the police and report you. I'll remember your face."

"Ed—Anthony," he corrected himself, catching his mistake before it got the better of him. He wasn't taking any chances, and that certainly meant not telling Patricia his name. If she went to the police after this, then she knew his name _and_ his face, and that meant certain death.

"Well, Tony," Patricia said, addressing him, giving him his nickname sarcastically. He could practically _see_ the sarcasm dripping through her tone. "What do you want from me to get you to leave me alone?"

"Just buy me some food," he almost begged her. Eddie, now renamed Tony to Patricia, the redhead in front of him. He almost convinced himself to get on one knee to beg, to make it look more convincing. "Please. I'm starving here. Just buy me some food, and then you can go your own way. Never have to see my face again."

"Okay. Whatever," Patricia answered, her voice still a whisper. She rolled her eyes one final time before pushing herself off the concrete, craning her neck to see beyond the fence, the rain still drizzling down on their hair. "Come on, Tony, you slimeball. I'll buy you a hamburger or something and then I'm _out_ of here."

"Good enough for me," Eddie said happily, smirking whenever Angelina Thompson, a girl in his class before he took off running from home, came up and kissed him. He almost missed his house — when he _had_ a house — but if he stayed there any longer, he would've been in jail right now. Now all he had was a lousy redheaded girl named Patricia and nine hundred pounds in her pocket waiting to be spent. "So, is your hair, like, naturally red or something?"

Patricia groaned, and Eddie laughed beside her, not knowing the adventure he was going to embark on with her and ten other teenagers.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

**A/N: Well, it's been two years since season two premiered. It still feels like yesterday that I was 12, sitting in front of the television (not even on the couch! On the floor!) and squealing like a maniac as the channel showed "Last year on House of Anubis". I can't believe it's been two years, and three years since the show originally premiered. I made this account (Smiley612) in October, but I'll turn three years old on this website on April 3rd...whoa.**

**What I can promise is that all the characters will come into play by the next chapter, and by chapter 3, they'll find the main setting (which won't be Anubis House, by the way). I don't know how many chapters it'll have yet, but I had to get this out of my system before I forgot about it. Anyway, I do hope you enjoyed! Care to drop in a review? I'd love it if you told me what you thought. Rumor has it that if you don't review, Rufus will come back and kidnap you because he somehow found a way to achieve immortal life again. Yup.**

**-Lia**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hello again! I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed, because you're supporting my dumb attempt at a good multichaptered story. I've outlined 15 chapters, and chapter 16 is when the final "Runaway" comes in; I'm not telling you which order the characters appear in, but the final Runaway is in 16. **

**This story will be updated EVERY SATURDAY, unless I miss a week, which I happen to do often. I'm just as excited to write this as you are to read it, so I do hope you enjoy, and I hope you have a nice rest of the weekend!  
-Lia**

* * *

**E**ddie is a fugitive.**  
P**atricia was never the good twin.**  
A**mber sleepwalked into trouble with the law...again.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

"Rule number one," Patricia held up her index finger as the two of them walked. The their feet splashed in the puddles underneath them, as Eddie dragged his hiking boots along the concrete. "No questions."

"No questions?" Eddie asked her curiously, smirking when she groaned in exasperation.

"I said no questions!" Patricia protested, snark dripping through her tone. Eddie wanted to laugh because of how unbelievable this woman was being; all he was asking was for a small favor that wouldn't make her go out of her way for more than fifteen minutes. After all, if she _was_ on the run like he was, she should be grateful that he was giving her some direction.

Barely holding back a snort, Eddie held up his hands in surrender. She was his one hope in finding food; of course, there were dumpsters everywhere, but even Eddie didn't feel like dumpster diving for a rotten apple, fast food chain bags, and empty pizza boxes (occasionally he'd find a piece of rotten pizza left over, and that was usually the height of his day.

"Okay!" he told her, his hands still in the air. "Sorry, sorry."

Patricia exhaled loudly, rolling her eyes like she usually did. In the few minutes they had been walking together, the drizzle had stopped. There was a light fog draping the area in front of them, but as soon as they walked further, it disappeared. "Alright," Patricia continued, holding up another finger. "Rule number two."

Eddie crossed his arms as he walked alongside the redhead, behind the wall of houses that faced the main road, Ye Priory Court. He smirked as he watched Patricia remain silent, thinking of something to ridicule the person walking beside her. "Cant think of anything, can you?"

"Not with your snarky attitude, no," she responded sarcastically, which only made Eddie snort in laughter. Patricia was definitely not the person he'd want to hang around all the time in school. She looked like she wanted to prove she was smarter than him, but he'd survived by himself on the run for eighteen days now, and she'd only been alone for, what, a day? Two? Eddie would've left her alone if he wasn't so damn hungry.

"I could do well without your sarcasm, too, Patty," he said scornfully, but Patricia huffed, and stood in front of Eddie so he couldn't move any further.

"Okay!" she shouted, loud enough for the people inside the houses to the left of them could hear. Eddie almost shushed her in fear, but Patricia began to count off on her fingers again. "Rule number two: Don't call me Patty, Tony. The nickname is obnoxious and it's not my name, and frankly I've had enough because Piper always used to—"

"Piper?" Eddie questioned, his smile almost reaching his eyes.

He knew he was pushing her buttons, which was exactly his aim, when she responded with: "Refer to rule number one. Anyway. Like I was saying. No questions, and don't call me Patty. I'll buy you a hamburger and some chips, but then we part ways. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," he responded happily, giving Patricia one of his famous smirks. However, she huffed, rolled her eyes again, all before turning away to move beside him and continue walking. "And maybe, Patricia, before we 'part ways', you could tell me why you're on the run."

"Because I want to be on the run," she answered immediately. "Is that such a big deal?"

"Kind of," Eddie continued, still smirking, but mostly to himself. He had gone so long without holding a conversation with someone; it felt nice to push someone's buttons, to push his luck with people. "It's dangerous."

"I realize that," was Patricia's only response.

"There are creepers out there."

"Creepers like you?"

"Creepers exactly like me," Eddie shrugged, his eyes on the concrete ahead of him. "You shouldn't be consorting with me, Yacker. I'm bad news."

"And it starts with the goofy nicknames," Patricia muttered, probably to herself. Eddie figured if she didn't want to be heard, she shouldn't whisper as loud as she did. After, Patricia turned her head to the boy next to her, raising her voice so it could be heard in a thousand-mile radius. "Wonderful. I can't wait until we get to that café. And then I can be rid of you forever, and—"

"Tell me, Patricia," Eddie began, legitimately confused. "Why are you walking with me if you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you," she answered immediately again, like she had been expecting this question.

"Well you're certainly acting like it."

"I don't know you, so how could I hate you?" Once again, Patricia turned her head to Eddie as they walked along the dark concrete path. The crickets were chirping, the night wind chill was biting at their pale hands, and Eddie could have sworn he heard an owl hooting somewhere in the darkness. He didn't know the time, since he cracked his watch after a hard fall after jumping off a roof to escape a cop, but he estimated it was sometime after midnight; possibly one or two am, three at the latest.

"I'm annoying," Eddie contributed playfully, trying to bump into Patricia's shoulder, but she moved out of the way before he could do so. She nodded in agreement, probably annoyed how he kept pushing his luck with her. "I'm rude, and uncouth, and presumptuous. I like to target little girls and kill them when they sleep."

"You seriously need to find a better sense of humor, Tony," Patricia muttered again, still loud enough for Eddie to hear. He knew why he picked the name Anthony; it was his step-father's name. He wasn't about to pick Eric, because no one in 1995 would name their newborn Eric, but Anthony was a possibility. Besides, he was closer to his step-father than to his actual father, and he liked that name.

He didn't know how long Patricia would be around, nor did he know if it was her actual name. She could be lying to him, just like he was lying to her. Eddie figured they just needed to talk a few more miles together before he ate his hamburger and they parted ways as unlikely friends.

Eddie and Patricia walked side-by-side in silence. Occasionally Eddie would consider breaking it, but when he started to open his mouth to say some snippy comment to her, he stopped himself. He remained silent until he saw the café in the distance; he couldn't see the name, but the building didn't seem familiar in the least. He barely knew his way around Liverpool; his daily routine consisted of waking up, going to school, being around his friends, going home, sleeping, and repeating. He never took a car ride with his dad around town, or walked around with his friends to buy some sweets or something. He figured, since Patricia was British, she'd know the area better than he would.

"You're paying me back for this," she stated matter-of-factly, turning and walking backwards once the café came into sight, so she was able to see his face. "I see you have some money in your pocket, so when I go in and buy it for you, you're giving me however much it was worth, okay?"

"Okay," he responded, smirking. He couldn't _wait_ until she got him that cheeseburger; then he'd be back on his own, like he always was. Being alone was a feeling he had gotten used to, at least.

They walked a little further until the two of them stood thirty meters from the café. Just seeing people dining in, laughing with their family and friends, made Eddie's heartache.

Even though Eric annoyed Eddie to point where he wanted to strange his dad, only to bring him back to life so he could kill him in a different way, he loved him. His stepfather was always away, and even though Jake, Bianca, and Kate were alright, he'd never really had a fatherly figure in his life. Then his stepfather had died when Eddie was eleven, and his mom had died when he was fifteen. Jake, Bianca, and Kate were currently living with some aunts and uncles, but Eddie had gone to live with his blood father, and even though he'd never admit it, he'd grown to love him.

Sure, Eric had his flaws. He left Eddie and his mother when his son was only two. But something about him always kept Eddie around; maybe it was the possibility he could have a fatherly figure, finally, or the fact that Eddie could go on fishing trips whenever he pleased, or just the fact that his dad made it fun..._sometimes_.

And now, Eddie had no one. He had no stepfather, or mother, or even father. He'd done wrong, he admitted that, but he'd do anything to be able to go back home and see his dad again, and not in a jail cell. He'd learned to stay out of sight when he had to be in public, because if he was arrested for all the crimes he'd committed, he wasn't sure Eric would come and bail him out this time.

"Stay here," Patricia commanded him, holding out her hands like she was training a dog to stay. He wanted to sarcastically comment 'Woof', but with the heavy wallet in her hands, he was sure that all she would do in response was whack him over the head with it. "If I buy that hamburger, and you're not here, I'll still remember your face, and I'll report you for attempted assault."

"But I haven't assaulted you."

"I'll report you for attempted robbery, then."

"Well, that's true."

With a confused look, Patricia rolled her eyes one final time and walked into the café. Eddie took a deep breath and moved around the building, hiding behind the back of it, near the dumpster.

There were no windows, so luckily no chefs or employees could see a seventeen-year-old boy creeping outside. He wondered what Patricia was doing inside there; would she be ordering right now? Was she getting pickles on the hamburger? (He hoped not, because he really hated pickles.) Some guy _could_ have been assaulting her right now, and he'd have no idea.

Luckily, he heard footsteps coming around the corner. Patricia was silent as she walked toward him carefully, holding the hamburger out for him to take. She looked...pale, almost, like she had seen a ghost as she was ordering. Eddie took the food gratefully, reaching inside his pocket and tossing her a pile of currency from his pocket into her hand. He leaned against the wall, happily chewing, when out of the blue Patricia muttered, "You're a fugitive."

He almost choked as the shock came to him, the piece of beef suddenly refusing to go down his esophagus. With a bit of help from himself, he helped the hamburger piece travel down, when he blinked and stared at the redhead beside him. "What?" He asked her carefully, knowing what she said about him was true.

"You're a wanted fugitive," she murmured, her whisper still loud enough for him to hear, as she finally came to a conclusion. "That's why you made that comment about the robbery being true. And that's why you couldn't go into the café, because you're afraid someone will recognize you and turn you in. YOU'RE A WANTED FUGITIVE!"

"Say it louder, Patricia," he hissed, bringing her down to his level as he crouched again. He didn't know how she figured it out during the short time period she was on line, but he didn't particularly care right now. "I don't think the person in London heard you."

"I can't believe it," Patricia said scornfully, holding her red hair with her hands, looking like she could pace around if she could. "I've been walking around town with a fugitive. I've been walking around with someone who should be in jail."

"Okay," Eddie said, pushing himself off the concrete sidewalk, slowly backing away from her. He figured she wouldn't want him to touch her; probably paranoia, or fear that someone who, truthfully, _should_ be in jail after robbing a house and buying illegal drugs and hijacking a car from his own neighbor. "I know I messed up, but I was _really_ hungry. And I know it's too much to ask, but can you keep this a secret?"

"Keep it a secret?" Patricia was surprisingly calm, for someone who just realized she had been walking around town with a fugitive. "Are you kidding? You know what, Buster, I'm—" Then, she took in another deep breath and a smile crossed her face. She looked like some super villain, about to be pushed over the ledge but would go down laughing, still overcome by an incredulous feeling.

Patricia cleared her throat, and Eddie heard her recite perfectly: "A pretty girl can kiss a guy, a bird can kiss a butterfly, the morning sun can kiss the grass, but you, my friend, can kiss my ass."

And, with that, she began to walk in the opposite direction in which they came.

"PATRICIA!" He screamed, a rather angry expression crossing his face. When he grabbed her wrist to stop her from walking any further and turning him in, she turned around, raised her foot in the air, perfectly ready to stomp on his foot to get away. However, in their struggle (Where Eddie was warning himself that she might pull a Rose DeWitt Bukator and spit in his face), someone else in the distance screamed, "HELP!"

Eddie and Patricia froze. The voice in the distance, still screaming, didn't seem to attract any attention to the other pedestrians waltzing around, or any of the customers eating inside, since the puddles from the rain were still sitting on the outside tables. No one seemed to notice the scream, or pay any attention to it, but it certainly caught Eddie's attention.

So, as the feminine voice continued to scream for help, Eddie refused to let go of Patricia's wrist as he walked the other way, toward the sound. Patricia fought against the hold on her, trying to pull him off her, to run the other way with her money and be rid of him forever, but Eddie wasn't sure what he was walking into, and he wanted another human being at his side.

"LET GO OF ME!" Patricia screamed once the voice grew closer; Eddie almost lost his grip on her for a second. He continued to charge ahead, curious as to who the woman was that was screaming for help; maybe _he_ could help, or maybe he could just confirm that it wasn't a cop looking for him.

He wasn't quite sure why himself, but Eddie continued to follow the source of the noise, Patricia at his heel. The screams itself died down soon after they started, but Eddie could hear a slight wailing, a small moan in the distance. He followed it cautiously, until the scene exposed itself to him: a young girl with blonde hair, sitting on the concrete, holding her ankle in pain.

"Oh!" The girl wailed, once she had noticed Patricia and Eddie standing in front of her, Patricia still being held against her will. "Oh, thank goodness someone came! I thought I was going to get eaten by a ghost!"

Eddie's head moved from to Patricia, then to the injured girl, and back to Patricia. She seemed too shocked to move, staring at the girl on the ground. Eddie, however, crouched down to the girl's level and whispered, "Are you okay?"

"No," the girl answered, meeting Eddie's eyes, getting the hint to be quiet. Eddie waited for more, but she only spoke that one word.

"What happened to you?" He asked her, tightening his grip on Patricia's wrist. The girl on the ground seemed innocent enough; Eddie had learned not to trust people, but with tears sliding down her cheeks and how she wasn't willing to let go of her ankle was proof enough that she just fell and hurt her ankle. "What happened to make you end up here?"

"Nothing," she moaned, closing her eyes in pain as she tightened her grip on her ankle. "I...I wasn't looking where I was going, and I slid on some ice. And then...um...I tried to get up, but I couldn't."

"You can't move your ankle?" He asked her, and the girl nodded again, her face scrunching up in pain. Eddie quickly craned his neck behind him to look at Patricia; she, too, seemed interested in this random girl on the side of the road. He looked back to the girl again, noticing how much dirt and grime was in her hair; how her pink flats were stained with mud to the point of no return; how she, evidently, had been wearing makeup and cried sometime in the past, because fresh mascara was trailing down her cheeks.

"Alright," Eddie muttered, thinking things through. He considered plenty of possibilities, glancing every direction before leaning down to the girl on the ground again and asking her, "Where do you live?"

"You're not taking me back there," the girl insisted, giving him a glare while holding her ankle still. "I can't go home."

"Okay..." Eddie muttered, thinking about his choices. While he _was_ a wanted fugitive, just like Patricia said he was, if he left this injured girl on the side of the street all alone, while he had already got himself involved, the guilt would carry with him for, most likely, the rest of his life. He didn't have a phone on him, so he couldn't call 999, and he wasn't taking the chance of asking Patricia to do the honors for him.

Besides, he understood the want to stay away from home. Whatever was this girl's problem, he didn't necessarily care, but he might as well help her. He might be the only one who understood her, now.

"Alright," Eddie murmured again, finally coming a decision. "We'll have to get you to a hospital. C'mon. Throw your hands over my neck."

"I'm not going to a hospital!" The girl exclaimed; Eddie could almost _see_ the fear coursing through her. "They'll...they'll recognize me...and they'll send me back home. I can't go home! I just got out of that place, and I can't go back! I CAN'T!"

He was then tempted to leave her be; if she couldn't go home and couldn't go to a hospital because of her broken ankle, Eddie didn't know anyone else who could help her or relieve her of her pain. He told himself he couldn't leave no because he was involved, but if she was refusing his help, he didn't see any other option than to leave her.

"Please!" The girl begged, still holding her ankle. He couldn't imagine how much pain she was in; he had never broken a bone in his entire life. Tears were streaming freely down her face, and every time she tried to move her ankle in a more comfortable position, her face contorted in pain and she gave up trying to move it. "Just...just bring me to someone who can help me. Please. I'm too pretty and too young to die!"

Eddie heard Patricia scoff from where she was standing behind him, but as he took one final breath, he leaned further down and held out his arms, carefully scooping the girl off of the ground and into his arms. "Thank you," she muttered, leaning her head into his chest, probably thinking it was warmer than this January cold she had suffered through as long as he had.

"What's your name?" Eddie asked her as he walked out of the valley, Patricia trailing along behind him willingly. The girl's blonde hair was wet, so Eddie's dry shirt that he had managed to keep dry for eighteen days now was spreading with water as she leaned into it. She looked much more relieved now that the pressure had been taken off her ankle.

"Am—" she started, but caught herself before she could continue. That's when he realized she was going to give him a fake name; everyone was so used to saying their real name, so if they had to change it, most people stuttered before they corrected themselves. Besides, Eddie had told Patricia a fake name, too. "Amethyst," she finally answered, her eyes drooping as if she was tired. "But you can call me Amy. What's _your_ name?"

"Anthony," he said smoothly, preparing himself. "But Patricia over here" —He tilted his head toward Patricia, who had started to follow them— "calls me Tony. I don't care what you call me."

Amy nodded, closing her eyes and leaning into Eddie's chest. He didn't care much for the girl, he was just looking for someone to take care of her so he didn't have to. He didn't want to leave her to rot in that alley, anyway. "Where are you from?" Amy asked, her voice soft as her body bumped along with Eddie's steps, as she was resting in his arms.

He was just about to make a lie about how his mother got a job in the UK and couldn't resist it so his family had moved from New Jersey to Liverpool, but instead, sirens starting blaring in the distance.

"Run," Amy's eyes grew to the size of tennis balls so fast Eddie doesn't even remember it happening. "They're coming for me! Run! You have to go, now!"

"I think they might be coming for _me_," Eddie muttered under his breath, before glancing behind him, nodding to Patricia, holding Amy's head to his chest and sprinting ahead. The sirens continued as they ran, and Eddie breathed harder as he pumped his legs and steadily breathed to get enough oxygen in. He could hear Patricia's light footsteps behind him, but he could honestly say that if she took off running the other way, he wouldn't stop her.

The sirens grew louder and closer; Eddie wasn't sure who they were coming for, and if they were even coming for him, but he ran. The extra weight with Amy in his arms slowed him down the slightest bit, but he ran like there was a ghost on his tail. He couldn't afford going to jail, not _again_, he couldn't go back and see the life he had left and not want to stay there.

Besides, it was probably better that. Eric probably wasn't getting constant migraines anymore (Which he would have if the police caught him and recognized him). He continued to run, his legs growing weaker with every step he took. He had long legs, so his long strides were no match for Patricia, who was long behind him by now.

"What's going to happen?" Amy asked him, shaking even in the warmth of his grasp as Eddie paused behind a wall to both catch his breath and wait for Patricia to catch up to him. "Are the police coming for us? How did they find me? And what do you mean about them coming for you?!"

"This is no time for questions!" He exclaimed, seeing the redhead run past the wall without noticing Eddie behind it. He tucked Amy in inside his chest again so nothing would hit her, while he sprinted to catch Patricia's arm to make her realize they were both together again.

He could see a panicked look on her face, confident and enduring but not sure somehow; and he continued to run, because even though he didn't know what Amy meant about the police coming for her, he knew he didn't want to go back to his old life with his dad where he had to go to school with the 'wrong people' his dad didn't approve of and coming home to the same meal day by day, rice and pasta. His life on the run had been anything but boring, and including Amy and Patricia, he had only consorted with three people.

The sirens grew so close that Eddie could practically feel his heartbeat in his throat as he sucked in another deep breath. He didn't know where to run or where to go, because if he turned around, he could run into the police. Or he could run into something or someone else, and they'd turn him in, just like the other person he'd consorted with had threatened before Eddie took off running to London but never made it past eight miles out of town.

"Over here!" Eddie exclaimed, once he had noticed a separate alley, similar to the one Amy had been in before. He grabbed Patricia's arm to slow her down, and she slid in a puddle because of how quickly she stopped. Patricia's shirt and jeans were soaking wet, but she turned on her heel and followed Eddie down the alley.

They stood with the backs against the wall, the sirens growing closer and closer by the second. "We can't just stay here forever," Patricia remarked snidely, once she had caught her breath, her back against the wall as well. "They're going to find us sooner or later."

"I know," Eddie responded, his breaths quick and short, as he had ran faster and couldn't collect his breath as quickly as he normally could. "But...but we have to stay here for now. We can't keep running. We'll get lost, and then we won't know where—"

The sirens came again, louder and more clear, and Eddie literally felt the jolt of fear course through him. "Oh, no," he muttered, as Amber clawed at his red shirt and buried her head into it, just as scared as he was.

"There's a staircase," Eddie murmured, blinking to clear his vision, making sure he had saw right. And, sure enough, there _was_ a staircase on the left wall, one that led down to a door that was open the slightest bit. There seemed to be a light on inside; could someone be in there? Was someone home? "Come on. Follow me."

"We can't just go in there!" Patricia scolded him, a look of utter incredulous on her face.

"We'll apologize later!" Eddie's voice was more rushed as the sirens approached; they might not have even been for him, but he wasn't taking any chances. "Look; the door is open. If someone's home, we'll explain to them that we needed a place to hide and theirs worked just fine, and then we'll have. We'll just stay in there until the sirens stop we and we know they're gone! Now _come on_!"

Amy ducked her head into Eddie's shirt as Eddie bounced down the staircase on the left side of the alley, Patricia straight on his heel. He kicked the door open with the heel of his foot, exposing the florescent lights of the inside basement they had discovered.

Once they were all inside, Eddie shut the door with a_ click_ and locked them inside. No one had a key. No one could find them.

There was a large flight of stairs leading down into it, so he ran faster and faster until his feet touched a carpeted floor. Patricia huffed heavily and leaned against a wall once she had stepped onto the carpet as well; the lights were on, and Eddie didn't see a light switch to turn them off, nor did he see any other living person here.

With Amy's head still buried in his shirt in fear, Eddie took in his surroundings: from what he could see in his limited peripheral vision, he saw a couch to the far left of the room, and nothing else. There was one couch and a maroon rug underneath it. When he turned right, he could see some sort of door...with both Patricia, Amy, and Eddie himself huffing and puffing, still surprised they had escaped from the police, Eddie carried Amy to the worn-out couch and laid her down on it. She held her ankle as soon as she touched the cotton, but she thanked Eddie for carrying him.

He walked tentatively towards the door, carefully pushing it open now that both of his hands were free again. No one else, other than Amy, Patricia, and himself were here, so he wasn't necessarily afraid of a murderer being inside, but something else was eating at him as well, and he couldn't place it. So as the wooden door creaked, he opened it up to discover indoor plumbing.

Inside the door stood a rusted white toilet, with a cover and seat and even one or two rolls of toilet paper along with it, even though they didn't look all that clean. When he glanced even further inside this bathroom, he also saw a small shower, including an ancient floral shower curtain with holes in every other inch.

"There's a kitchen!" Came a voice from the other side of the room; it seemed that to the right of the door Eddie had first seen, there was another hallway that wasn't all that long, but still contained a refrigerator, stove/oven, sink, and a few shelves/cabinets that were most likely empty. With cobwebs covering every corner, Eddie had no doubt that this place had been abandoned for many, many years.

Patricia was in said kitchen; she had, evidently, followed him as he looked around. "Be careful," he warned her, running up when he saw she was moving her hand to the stove. "We don't know what's on and what's not. For all I know, that oven could have been on for the past two years."

"I highly doubt that," Patricia's voice was quiet, but was as stern as it was when he first met her. "If it was on, this place would have burnt down a long time ago. Besides, look—" Despite his protests, Patricia opened up the fridge by the handle, exposing the light to come off. Somehow (Eddie didn't want to know why or how, he was just grateful for now), the power was on in this underground refuge, forcing the refrigerator light to come on.

They had found a home. Or, at least, a substitute home. Amy had a broken ankle, Eddie had a broken home, and Patricia? Eddie didn't know about her. However annoying she might have been, he kind of hoped she stayed.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

**A/N: If you haven't guessed already, 'Amy' is Amber. Not all of the characters will have fake names; if I remember correctly, only Eddie, Amber, KT, and Mara use fake names, but hey, I'm not going to tell you when they came into play. Chapter three will be published January 25th, so look out for that.**

**Also, I know I may sound a little desperate, but I work my tush off on my chapters and I didn't get any reviews on the chapter of Lost & Found yesterday. And I have 92 SIGNED-IN users following that. I'm not demanding reviews, nor will I hold them back, but as I work my butt off trying to make it the best these chapters can possibly be, I'd love to hear what you guys thought. Did anything need to be improved? Was my writing sufficient? And most of all, did you actually like the chapter? I know this may sound like a lot, but hey, you would make my day if you did such a simple thing as reviewing.**

**And of course, I wish your day as good as it can be as well :)  
**

**-Lia**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Wow, I'm great at updating. I said I'd update every single Saturday, but look at where that got me? I think I missed about two Saturdays.  
**

**Sorry, tho; I'll try to update faster, since I know 21 people follow this story. I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and the rest of the weekend as well! xx**

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

**E**ddie is a fugitive.**  
P**atricia was never the good twin.**  
A**mber sleepwalked into trouble with the law...again.**  
W**illow decided to become a thief.

* * *

Now her name was Amy.

In her state of panic, she thought of herself (Amber Millington, est September 4th 1995 in London) because that's who she knew best. No one knew Amber like _Amber_ knew Amber.

She knew that the actual amber you could find in the earth was a jewel. She was never one for quick-thinking, but she went through the list of other jewels she had stored in her memory, because jewels were one of the things in her limited list of things she actually liked.

In a small number of seconds, Amber went through Garnet. Sapphire. Diamond. Emerald. None of them were suitable as names. Then the boy who was crouching down beside her was still waiting for an answer, so she blurted out the next jewel she could think of: Amethyst.

When the girl behind the guy scrunched up her forehead in distaste, Amber shortened it and said her name was Amy, which was so similar to her real name she wouldn't be surprised if Tony and Patricia figured out who she was.

Amber Millington, back home in London, was labeled as the Love Guru. She could always tell when one person had feelings for another. She wore designer shoes and the latest fashion trends because of the large allowance Daddy gave to her. Her family was more wealthy than the average one, so whenever Amber saw something on a shelf she wanted, she didn't have to wait to get it.

That was, until her father died, leaving her mother widowed. Her family depended on their father for money, since he had such a good occupation that provided the Millington family with enough money to leave them financially stable and one of her parents had to work. Whenever Amber was off on school holidays in primary school, her mother never had to hire a babysitter, since she could look after her own daughter.

When her father died, her mother tried to get a new job, but she eventually gave up when there were no new jobs available on the market. Therefore, their stocks crashed, their money flying out of their pockets by the second. Soon enough, Amber found that she could no longer buy that pretty pair of purple heels she saw in the store window as soon as she saw them.

And that was when she started shoplifting.

She didn't steal anything important at first; some mints from the drug store, small items like a pencil sharpener or shaving razor or even some drinks from her local convenience store's refrigerator; Some little things that she wanted but couldn't buy.

When months and months passed and her family soon weaved themselves into debt, Amber started stealing both things her family needed, and things _she_ wanted for herself. She stole the new pair of _really cute_ purple flats on the first day they came out, since they were ultra expensive. She stole food from the market for her mother and two brothers. Her mother, Carol, worked almost twenty-four hours a day to support a family with three children, and herself.

So Amber cooked the meals. Her older brother, Nicholas, was too busy playing Call of Duty to cook supper, and her younger brother Michael was only 11, so she wasn't about to let a small 11-year-old, her barely-reached-puberty baby brother cook dinner for her entire family. Amber took cooking classes when she was younger, thanks to the money her family had, plus she watched her mother cook in the kitchen all the time when she was little. The Millington family had a cook book as well, and Amber only set the kitchen in flames _once_.

She still stole from the store. If she went to the mall with some of her friends, she bought that nice blouse instead of paying for it herself. If she ordered a coffee at a café, she told the barista she was going to get the money from her car, but then drove away without giving them any money. She stole this really nice locket from someone on the streets; it was black and red and shaped weirdly, like two crescent moons pressed together.

She still had that locket hidden in her pocket. It wasn't her good luck charm or anything like that, but she always liked it around her neck. At the same time, however, she felt like it didn't sit right with her; like it didn't belong on her neck.

No one suspected her of shoplifting until she assaulted that woman.

She'd grown out of hand with shoplifting; she knew she needed to stop, since karma was bound to come around kick her in the ass sometime soon. But Amber and her family were out of cash once again, and that teenager was just _carrying_ that load of money around with her. She was _asking_ for it to be stolen.

Unfortunately, Amber was never that discreet. She was sure she made plenty of noise as she approached the teenager's pocket book, but as soon as she reached for it, the teenage girl turned around. She started to ridicule Amber on how stealing was wrong, and how she shouldn't be that envious if she didn't have that much money for herself.

She thought about that for such a long time.

The nights continued; Amber stole ingredients from the market, brought them home to cook dinner, and tried to ignore her brother's comments on her cooking and waited for her mother to return from work for the night. The summers were the worst, because her younger brother didn't have any friends that he didn't meet online, so he stayed home most of the day and her mother wouldn't let her go outside if her brother wasn't with her.

Amber rarely left the house during the summer, so she didn't have school to get her away from her two brothers. Her older brother, Nicholas, would come home from his day out with his friends and bring Amber down with his words, just as usual, and they would critique her on her cooking.

This happened so often that she'd grown used to it. It happened so often that she'd began to think it was true.

And she sunk into depression.

Amber knows what her schoolmates thought: _Poor little rich girl...what does she know about misery?_ But they're wrong, because they should have been thinking: _What could have happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out?_

She was trapped, by her whole world and all the people in it. Her life was plunging ahead into a dark chasm, and she was powerless to stop it; her brothers hurt her with their words and didn't believe in her, her father was dead, and her mother was always working.

Once a process server came to her door and handed Amber papers that told her the Millington family was going to be evicted from their house as soon as possible, she left a note on the counter for her two brothers to find and took off into the night.

She could see how leaving an eighteen-year-old boy, who was more immature than she could ever be, to take care of an eleven-year-old boy when their mother barely came home could be considered bad, but she didn't care. Amber had had enough of Nicholas constantly criticizing the food she made for supper, or Michael saying she was dumb when she told him she couldn't study with him because she didn't pay enough attention in school.

She might have felt bad, leaving her brothers all alone, but now she was free. She could fly or travel around the world and make each day count. She was a Dawson. She had money in her pocket and didn't need anyone's help to survive.

She was free out here. No restrictions. No eviction papers, no shoplifting — well, she couldn't honestly say that there was _no_ shoplifting at all — and certainly no brothers who constantly put you down.

That was, until she slipped in a puddle and fell on her ankle.

Amber didn't know how to react at first; to wince, to scream, to do nothing at all? She realized, after calling for help many times and receiving nothing but silence in return, she'd try to get up by herself.

So she did, but she only fell down again. She told herself to fall down seven times and get up eight, but there was a part in her that knew it was useless. She was stuck in an alley alone with only the puddles as company. Amber told herself that "Maybe leaving the Millington household might not have been a good idea" until she'd screamed for help one final time and help came to her rescue.

Maybe it was fate that Tony and Patricia came to her help when she screamed and didn't abandon her when she made them run from the sirens. But now they lived in this underground refuge with indoor plumbing and electricity Amber didn't care if it didn't make sense. For now, at least, it was a home.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

"Come on, Patricia, it's a HOME!"

"I don't care!" Patricia fought against him, pacing around in the small hallway behind the stairs. Amy was sitting on the couch on the other side, probably able to hear all they were talking about, but she didn't care. She needed to get her point across. "I'm leaving!"

"No!" Eddie protested, grabbing her arm to halt her from walking any further again. "Patricia, wait. Why do you want to leave so desperately?"

"I want to be on the _run_!" Her red hair, held behind her ear with a pin, barely moved as she waved her arms as she talked. "I bought you that hamburger because I felt bad that you hadn't eaten in three days. I didn't want to find a screaming girl, run from the police, and spend the rest of my days as a runaway in some underground refuge thing! I left home to be on the run, to see the world."

"And tell me, Patricia," Eddie crossed his arms, leaning against the tan wall. "How much have you seen of the world, huh? How long have you actually been on the run?"

Morning had broken through the clouds again; Eddie's watch told him it was 6:57 in the morning. In the three hours that had passed since he met Patricia, ate the hamburger and fought against Patricia's accusation that he was a fugitive, then running from sirens after meeting Amy in an alleyway, all Eddie wanted was to relax.

"_That_ is none of your business," she sneered. "Look, I wanted to be on the run. I'm not a _wanted fugitive_ like you are, so I'm free to run around without the fear that I'll be caught. And now I have to go, before I have to look at your face any longer."

"Wait!' He stopped her right away, before she could even turn on her heel. "Look, I...I don't like being around people anymore than you do. But we found Amy over there, and we can't leave her. You know we can't."

"You can't, Tony, but I can," Patricia sneered, glaring at the man standing in front of her before turning on her heel again.

"Well, I'm going out!" He called in a low tone of voice, trying to attract Patricia's attention since Amy, whom they rescued off the side of the road, was napping on the couch. For all Eddie knew, she could have still been awake, listening to their conversation as they spoke, but he sincerely hoped she was genuinely asleep. "And I'm going to get food!"

"Where can you get food?" Patricia called back to him; however, she didn't realize that Amy was sleeping, so in her tone of voice, the girl on the couch began to wake up. "I have the money, here. And I don't plan to give you the money any time soon, because like I said, I wanted to be free. And I can't do that if I'm tied down, now can I?"

"Hold on a second," he whispered to her, grabbing Patricia's wrist gently and leading her into the kitchen, where they were separated from a sleeping Amy on the couch by a wall. "Look. I've been on the run for almost three weeks, now. How long have you been on the run, huh?"

"I don't need to tell you," she told him quietly, but that was all he needed. He fixed her with a long, pointed stare, probably lasting for a good forty seconds, but she didn't crack until Eddie started to move closer and closer and he was six inches away from her face hat he blurted, "Two days! This is only my second day on the run, okay?"

"Only two days?" He asked her softly, and Patricia nodded, as if she had given up her act of defiance. "Look, I understand; I'm on the run as well as you. But me...This is now my nineteenth day of being gone, and as strange as it sounds, I like having people around who don't betray me and threaten to call the cops on me because they recognized my face." Eddie shuddered at the reminder of Doug, who had betrayed him in his first few days of being a runaways, but he continued on. "Look. It's nice to have someone to fall back, and now...now you have two people to do that with."

"You're telling me I can fall back on a wanted fugitive and a girl with a broken ankle."

It was then that it started to sink in how ridiculous the proposition must have sounded to her, but Eddie desperately wanted people to talk to. There were no beds in the underground refuge they had, but they were standing on a carpet. There was a couch, even though Amy had taken up that with her broken ankle. There was a kitchen and a small, dinky bathroom, and a shaft that evidently hadn't been used in many years.

After close inspection, he found that no one had been in this underground refuge for probably two or three years. There was no food in the fridge, it took Eddie two minutes to simply flush the toilet to see if they had indoor plumbing (which they did), and the slight _plink_ sound Eddie kept hearing didn't reassure Eddie that this place wasn't going to come down on him any time soon.

"Look," Eddie breathed, glancing at the sleeping girl on the couch beyond the corner. "I know it may sound completely preposterous to you, but, just...give us two weeks, okay? Stay with Amy and I for two weeks, and if you hate it, well, then you can leave us forever. Amy has a broken ankle, she can't walk, and frankly, I want a safe place to sleep at night! Two weeks is all I'm asking for, okay? You have the money here."

"The money I wanted to use for _myself_," she told him sternly, her eye color being indistinguishable in the dim light of the underground refuge. "The money I also spent on your dumb hamburger. Look, I'm not going to spend my money on food for some girl with a broken ankle and someone who could be taken in by the police any moment now. I'm not doing it, okay?"

"You don't need to!" Came a voice from around the corner. Just like a person in a horror movie, Eddie stupidly decided to check it out. He was almost starting to think he was going to die when he found Amy, wide away, sitting awkwardly on the couch thanks to her broken ankle.

"You don't need to," Amy repeated, grinning at the two of them, brushing a large clump of blonde hair behind her face. "I don't really like a lot of food, anyway. All you need to do is buy me something small every other day or something, and I'm golden. It's you two you need to worry about, Patricia."

"See?" Eddie smiled, dragging Patricia around the corner once again. "Please, Patricia. I'm starving here, and it's nice to have a home, as well. Two weeks. Please."

Patricia breathed out, staring at him incrediously. He silently crossed his fingers behind his back when Patricia glanced around the corner one final time and sighed, "Fine."

"Yes!" Eddie cheered, but his excitement was short-lived, as Patricia had to rain on his parade.

"But, if anyone has to get the food around here, it's _you_, Wanted Fugitive," she smirked, taking some money out of her pocket and slamming a small stack in Eddie's open palm. "I'm going to kick back and relax."

Patricia moved over to the couch, next to Amy, and the two girls began discussing something he couldn't hear. They could've been talking about this totally dreamy boy at school, or the plan to kill him within the next few hours.

He wasn't sure why, but he felt the need to protect not just Amy, but Patricia, too, and she didn't have any disabilities weighing her down. She could get up and leave any time she wanted to her, and there was no stopping her. She could abandon Eddie and leave him and Amy with no money and no means to survive.

Not really knowing what to do, Eddie sighed, and stomped up the stairs into the bright blue sky of January 12th, 2014.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

He found the nearest market he could find: Winker's Handy Pantry. He prayed no one would recognize him, but he was sure his face had been on these people's televisions before.

Tightening his grip on Patricia's money in his hand, he pushed open the door of Winker's Handy Pantry, hearing the bells above the door jingle as he walked in.

He had to be on edge, because every move he made could be tracked. That feeling of something weighing him down could very well be a tracking device put on him by the FBI that night he slept on a park bench. He learned from nineteen days of being on the run that you could never truly be too careful.

He didn't have a very significant amount in his hand (He didn't have pockets, so he had to hold on to the money manually), and he didn't know what Amy or Patricia liked, so he grabbed a few things (pretty much) everyone liked: milk, peanut butter, bottles of water, bread, and cheese, to name a few. From what he knew of Patricia (a few hours, give or take), he knew she might complain about the amount and the type of food he would bring back, so he had to be careful about that, too.

He was just about to grab the last loaf of wheat bread off of the shelf when another hand beat him to it.

"Hey!" Eddie complained, whipping around and seeing a girl around his age, but much smaller in height then he was. She had red hair like Patricia, but it was a lighter shade. She wore a blue and white sundress, even though it was the middle of Winter, and she was stealing his loaf of bread. "Don't you dare take that from me!"

He tried to grab it from her, but the girl had a strong grip on it. "_I_ need it!" She tried to tug the loaf of bread away from him, but the two of them went back and forth, as Eddie had strong muscles, but the girl seemed to hang on the loaf as if it was a lifeline.

"I need it more!" He complained, tugging harder, dragging the girl along with every effort. "I don't have any food!"

"Neither do I!" The girl yelled, mirroring Eddie's movements by trying to drag the loaf as close to her as possible. "I'm _cold_, on the _run_, _starving_, and _I'm not afraid to take this from you_!"

A pause.

Eddie stopped tugging for only a moment, but didn't let go of his death grip on the wheat bread. He met the girl's eyes, and he could sense lonliness, desperation, just like him. Eddie's entire existance since he ran away was being reflected in the girl's eyes in front of him.

"You're on the run too?" Eddie asked her, not letting go of the bread, but keeping his eyes on her.

"Yeah," she breathed, glancing around Winker's Handy Pantry to see if anyone else had viewed their tug-of-war with the bread. "Why did you say _too_? Are...are you on the run as well?"

"Yeah!" He almost smiled, nodding his head feverishly. It was strange how things seemed to work in his favor; Eddie almost didn't give a thought to the fact that this girl had tried to steal his bread from her. "How long?"

"Six days," she sighed, keeping her grip on the plastic wrap. She looked exhausted, as if she could have just collapsed on the tiled floor of the market right there and then. For a Handy Pantry, it seemed big; there was an electronics section too, all the way in the back, in a clearance sale. "What about you?"

"Nineteen days," he shrugged, eyeing her clothes. They looked dirty; dirtier than Amy's had, and according to her, she had slipped in many mud puddles before she finally broke her ankle and sat down. "So almost three weeks. Why...why are you on the run?"

"Oh, it's a long story," she muttered, almost dreamily, glancing off to the side. "I'd tell you if I could stay, but I can't. I have to go off to starve and freeze to death."

"If you're tying to get me to be remorseful and give you the bread, it's not going to work," he told her, confused. The girl pouted, slouching her back. She looked about ready to give up; her grip on the plastic wrap of the loaf of bread wasn't as tight as it was before, and she gazed longingly at the door, where she could go off on her own, like she had for the past six days. "But...you do know that I'm on the run too, right? I can...I can take you up, if you want."

The good conscious in him was screaming: _YES, LET HER IN, BE A GOOD PERSON_, but the bad conscious in him was screaming right back: _NO, YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY OR THE MATERIALS, YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH ROOM IN YOUR SMALL REFUGE_. He had no idea what to do, but the girl looked so sad, so he just...

"I'm Anthony," he held out his hand, having to think of his name change before he introduced himself. "But you can call me Tony."

"Willow," the girl introduced herself. They shook hands for literally less than three seconds before they both diverted their gaze. "So...would you really take me under your wing?"

The conciouses fought again, until the good finally won over. "Yeah, why not? A runaway has to help another runaway, you know what I'm saying?"

Willow looked so pleased, Eddie almost didn't feel guilty about telling another person about his secret. He had grown so used to not trusting anyone over the past three weeks, especially since the Doug incident, that it was weird to be telling more and more people your secret, even though you changed your name to Anthony instead of your real name, Edison Carl Miller.

"Come on, then," he nodded his head toward the cashier, tugging on the bread again, but this time Willow didn't tug back. The bread was all his, and he could leave without paying for everything, like he usually did. "Let's buy the bread, and I'll introduce you to some of my other...friends, I guess."

What could he call them, and what would they think of him when instead of bringing food home, he brought a girl? He pondered a lot of thoughts as the two of them stood on the cashier line, and Willow bounced a tiny basketball on the tile floor. He wasn't sure where she had gotten that from, but it wasn't any bigger than a fist.

The two walked home in silence, the bread in Eddie's plastic bag, Willow bouncing the tiny basketball on the concrete as they neared the refuge Eddie had found on the fly.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

"_I can't pay for four people_!"

_Now_ he knew how they would react: Patricia with anger, and Amy with adoration.

"She's a runaway too, okay, Patricia?" Eddie began to protest, silently muttering with her. He handed her the change from Winkler's Handy Pantry, and she stuffed it gratefully in her pocket. "I figured the least I could do was offer her a home. She, at least, has been on the run for six days while you've only been here for two."

"It doesn't matter how long we've been on the run!" Patricia protested quietly, watching Willow and Amy talk on the couch. Willow stared at Amy in complete amazement, somehow awed by Amy's simple existence. "I don't know if that girl likes to eat or not, but I have, like...I don't know how many pounds left, but I don't have a lot. What's gonna happen when we run out of money?!"

"Oh, that won't be a problem!" Amy smiled, calling the four people in the room's attention. "I have a credit card. See?"

Amy reached in her pants pocket awkwardly, trying not to bend the wrong way, and pulled out a thin rectangle, shining in the dim lights of the refuge.

"How much is on there?!" Patricia wondered aloud, rushing towards Amy, while Eddie just stood still in amazement. "Why did you not tell us about this? This is great!"

"To answer your first question: Probably a lot," she grinned, and Patricia smiled like a little kid on Christmas morning. "And...well, I'm scared to use it. I don't know if it's like, tracked, or something, and I don't want my brothers to know where I am."

Eddie felt the same exact way, just not the 'brothers' part of it. It was then he realized he truly knew nothing about these three girls' existences...he didn't know anything about them. One of them could be a serial killer, and he'd have no idea. He didn't know why either of them were on the run, or what led them to be.

"How about we play an icebreaker?" He suggested, outstretching his arms until every head turned to him. Amy's was confused, Willow's was excited, and Patricia was just plain outraged. What was the deal with that girl? He didn't know if she hated him or not, but he also didn't know that he'd be falling in love with her in the future.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, really crappy ending, but it turned out to be longer than expected. The next Runaway will come in next chapter, and as you can tell, there's promised Peddie...I don't know what other couples I want, so maybe you can recommend/suggest some? Peddie's a definite, though.**

**I like High School Story a lot. It's kind of taken over mine and likestarlight's life. You should play it too, if you're reading this! You should also read Tempest by Julie Cross and watch Titanic if you haven't already because it's the best movie evar. (Oh, and another thing; expect to see eight million Titanic references within this entire story.)**

**I do hope you enjoyed this chapter, and have a lovely rest of the weekend!  
-Lia**


End file.
